i make this the 236th anniversary of the boston tea party. as you may recall the issue was taxes. in celebration i'm urging everyone to send money galore to michele bachman. wait. did i say michele bachman? i meant rand paul.

it might seem that when people whine about taxes, in the tradition of george washington, they are simply being selfish and refusing to help their nation and fellow citizens. but taxation is of the essence. the state is this sort of feedback loop: a little gang gets enough power (=weapons and weapon-wielders) to confiscate some of your stuff, by threatening you with pain or death. the resources thus generated enable them to gain enough power (=weapons and weapon-wielders) to take more of your stuff and move outward geographically: the origin is simply organized crime. now this has never stopped since the peace of westphalia or the late neolithic or whatever, so that now you have world-annihilating war machines which subordinate each of us utterly and to which, for that reason, we sincerely express our loyalty.

resistance is impossible and useless, and every day since 50 BC it has become more impossible and useless. why? taxation.

now i personally think that the state's provision of food, shelter, healthcare - in short our complete loss of autonomy or self-reliance in its ambit - is itself a form of subordination, that a totally dependent population is a totally oppressed population. but leave that aside. these war and genocide machines have slaughtered hundreds of millions. they have developed weapons capable of killing every single thing on earth that lives. you can't do that without taxation.

and if you think taxation is anything other than confiscation, then i suggest that the u.s. gov shift to soliciting voluntary contributions. then the actions of the state would actually be - as they purport to be - the cooperative actions of the people. taxation is where it is obvious that up, down, and all around, the state is nothing but coercion, is nothing but force, is nothing but violence, here as everywhere else. taxation is what democracies have in common with fascist dicatatorships, one-party giant gulags, monarchies, and theocracies: they are all, right at the nub or essence, exactly the same thing: some people taking other people's stuff and using it to subordinate, repress, and slaughter on a scale otherwise completely inconceivable.

now i say these facts are known to everyone and are entirely obvious, right there in your face alldayeveryday. i hold to them against all comers. i say that though john rawls or barack obama have notably high iqs they are in this matter idiots: they hallucinate the state; they live in a fairy world; they have entirely lost touch with reality. barack obama has no idea what he's actually doing, or how, or why.